Dinner with a Side of Sustainability
ACTIVISTS KAREN LEIBOWITZ & ANTHONY MYINT ARE WORKING TO REDUCE RESTAURANTS’ CARBON FOOTPRINT
ONE MENU AT A TIME. BUT WILL THE INDUSTRY—AND DINERS—BITE? BY SOPHIE EGAN
• •••
One-quarter of
all greenhouse
gases are
attributed to
the global
food system.
SOURCE: ANNUAL REVIEW
OF ENVIRONMENT
AND RESOURCES.
C
arbon. It’s the stuff that comes
from coal-fueled factories and
idling tailpipes. Not exactly what
you equate with a delicious meal, right?
But food production also has a carbon
footprint (the tally of all greenhouse gases
it creates). And it’s a big one. Globally,
our food system generates nearly twice
as much greenhouse gases (GHGs) as the
transportation sector.
Two people keenly aware that the
time to clean up our act was yesterday
are restaurateurs and activists Karen
Leibowitz and Anthony Myint (below).
Their solution: carbon-neutral dining. This
restaurant category aims to shrink GHG
emissions to zero through a combination
of eco-friendly practices and carbon-off set
projects. And through their nonprofi t, the
Perennial Farming Initiative, this hus-
band-wife duo is helping to make that vi-
sion a reality, not just for the San Francisco
and New York City restaurants they’re
partners in (Mission Chinese Food and
Commonwealth), but for a host of others as
well via a program dubbed Zero Foodprint.
Here’s how it works: Zero Foodprint
conducts a life-cycle assessment of a
restaurant’s carbon footprint, with tech-
nical expertise from sustainability con-
sulting fi rm 3Degrees. This detailed audit
considers things like soil health, animal
husbandry, energy use and food waste. Typ-
ically, 60 to 70 percent of carbon emissions
come from the ingredients—how they were
produced, processed and transported to
ALANNA HALE
THINKING
a restaurant—with conventional red meat
accounting for the largest share. So it’s not
enough for restaurants to just buy Energy
Star’s top-rated refrigerators or change
all their light bulbs to LEDs. They have to
change the menu. For instance, the Zero
Foodprint restaurant Flour + Water in San
Francisco, makes its bread with Kernza, a
type of perennial wheat whose roots help
capture and store atmospheric carbon in
the ground and improve soil quality.
“One part of it is bringing in foods that
are good for the environment,” Leibowitz
explains. “The other part is reducing
harmful impacts.” To compensate for the
GHGs they can’t eliminate, restaurants
fund other sustainability eff orts, like the
distribution of clean-burning cookstoves
to replace open fi res in developing coun-
tries. Restaurants invest up to 35 cents per
customer for these projects, a small cost
that’s typically passed on to the diner.
The mission is noble, but there are ques-
tions about its potential to go mainstream.
For starters, its scale and accessibility are
limited, at least for now. Last year, only 19
restaurants were signed up, all fi ne-din-
ing operations—not places where folks
eat regularly. But this number has jumped
to 28 and more growth is on the horizon.
Another auspicious sign: the state of
California recently committed
to going totally carbon neu-
tral by 2045—and because
the Golden State is so
massive and innovative,
its initiatives tend to
have nationwide ripple
(continued on page 52)
- Go Green Grains
Learn more about Kernza,
the eco-friendly grain, at
eatingwell.com/kernza
50 EATINGWELL JULY/AUGUST 2019
